Vintage Hemlock

History and Characteristics of Vintage Hemlock

Vintage Hemlock is a relatively soft coniferous wood found in buildings from the mid Atlantic through New England and into Canada. It is the state tree of Pennsylvania. The lumber was widely used as structural framing beams and sawn boards for flooring, siding, and sheathing in many barns and houses into the mid 20th century. Hemlock has a distinct grain similar to yellow pine, and a tan hue similar to chestnut. However, Hemlock is soft and not recommended for “high traffic” floor installations. Careful sanding and a flexible matte finish are recommended to highlight the soft browns of its natural color, and to avoid finish cracking from the dents that will occur.

Specifications

Reclaimed solid wood flooring is normally milled to 17mm thickness (same top wear layer above the T&G as 3/4”, with a thinner bottom layer to maximize yield from scarce supplies of raw material).
Vintage Lumber is also able to meet customer’s requirements for both thinner (minimum 3/8”) and thicker solid flooring.
Most of our solid flooring is produced in random widths(RW) from 2” to 10”, on the full inch face. Typical RW ranges are 3” to 6”(3,4,5,6), 3” to 8”, 7” to 10”, or any combination needed. Board widths of over 20” are sometimes available in certain species. The wider the widths required, the higher the costs. Our RW flooring is usually not sold as a repeating pattern(equal lineal feet of each width). For prompt filling of orders, we base our RW counts on available widths in inventory, and we calculate a 9 or 10 board width sequence to facilitate installation to avoid all of one width remaining at the end.